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Mars rover Curious uncovers mysterious 'bright object'

NASA’s Curiosity rover has discovered a “bright object” in the red soil.

Curious ... NASA's Mars rover shows a scoop full of sand and dust lifted by the rover's first use of the scoop on its robotic arm.

But NASA is saying that it could just be a part of the rover that broke off.

Curiosity is acquiring additional imaging of the object to aid the team in identifying the object and assessing possible impact, if any, to sampling activities.

“The rover team decided to refrain from using the rover’s robotic arm on October 8 due to the detection of a bright object on the ground that might be a piece from the rover,” NASA said in a statement.

The rover had parked at a sand pit late last week, where it was to scoop up soil in order to clean and test its geological sampling hardware.

Curiosity is on a two-year mission to explore the Red Planet and learn whether conditions there might have been able to support life in the past.

The $US2.5 billion craft landed in Gale Crater on August 6, opening a new chapter in the history of interplanetary exploration.